Kukje Gallery is very pleased to announce its participation in the inaugural edition of Taipei Dangdai (台北 當代) at Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center from January 18 to 20, 2019. For the inaugural edition of Taipei Dangdai, Kukje Gallery will present a solo booth featuring the work of Haegue Yang, an artist internationally acclaimed for her conceptually challenging and formally dynamic practice. In the same spirit as Taipei Dangdai's ambitious new fair, Kukje Gallery's presentation will provide a rare opportunity for Taiwanese audiences to experience Yang's most recent works following her participation in the 2014 Taipei Biennial, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, where she presented a group of anthropomorphic light sculptures titled Female Natives (2010) and Medicine Men (2010) with a backdrop of her wallpaper piece Field of Teleportation (2011, in collaboration with Manuel Raeder)—an installation that also included the periodical musical accompany, namely Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (1913).
Kukje Gallery's booth will resemble a full-fledged exhibition, featuring a compact yet comprehensive display, showcasing her use of a diverse range of media including sculpture, collage, and even sound elements. The artist's non-binary approach toward culture and the folkloric is seen in the panoramic wallpaper piece, but also in an eclectic combination of two-dimensional works made with modest materials or minimalistic wall-mounting pieces with freestanding sculptures.
Entirely covering both exterior and interior walls will be a wallpaper piece titled Incubation and Exhaustion (2018), which was created in collaboration with the Berlin-based graphic designer Manuel Raeder and was first displayed in the artist's solo exhibition at La Panacée – MoCo in Montpellier, France (on view through January 13, 2019). The selection of motifs in the wallpaper's hybrid and panoramic environment reference Yang's investigation of the local pagan culture, history, as well as the contemporary economic development of the tech industries in Occitania, a region in southern France. Arranged in an exhilarating layout, the eclectic array of elements, varying from onions, garlic, and robotic medical devices, to graphically manipulated flames, vegetations, clouds, and bells, represents the natural and the manmade from the past and present, technology and culture, evoking time as being in constant flux and forsaking the myth of linearity.
Against the backdrop of the wallpaper, the installation will juxtapose handcrafted sculptures that evoke folk vernaculars with modular constructions consisting of industrial materials—commonly referred to as the venetian blind works—along with paintings that utilize cheap lacquer and question the historical conventions of the medium.
Yang's sculptural series The Intermediates (ongoing since 2015) incorporates plastic twine to evoke the myriad ways straw has been used historically for both utilitarian and ritual purposes. By recontextualizing straw as a contemporary material, the artist turns the viewer's attention to a common medium of universal relevance across countless civilizations and communities. Specifically produced for Taipei Dangdai, five new Intermediates will feature a contrasting palette of black and white, resembling mysterious creatures that inhabit an unfamiliar spatial and temporal spectrum.
Also installed in Kukje Gallery's booth will be Yang's signature venetian blind works, widely celebrated for their diverse range of sizes and formal variations. The Sol LeWitt Upside Down(ongoing since 2015) blind series directly refers to the geometric structures of the conceptual artist and minimalist Sol LeWitt (1928-2007). Hung "upside down," Yang's sculptural interpretation expands or reduces LeWitt's original structure, while maintaining its minimalist heritage. The works will be installed alongside a group of speakers, mounted around a corner of the booth, suffusing the entire space with birds singing—the only sound element captured from a distance by the global press of the private talk between the two Korean leaders during the Inter-Korean Summit held on April 27, 2018, at the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) with camera clicks and footsteps every once in a while. The seemingly banal sounds, including approximately twelve different species of birds, act as a poignant composite of the enigmatic presence of political events and their impact on the everyday life.
Yang's Lacquer Paintings (ongoing since 1994) consist of commonplace mesh produce bags on chipboards and are then covered with thick layers of lacquer, endowing them a rare presence between the traditional and quotidian.
Yang will also be participating in a talk on January 19 (Sat.) at 2pm, as part of the Ideas Program of the fair. Under the title Chronotopos: On Recent Practice of Haegue Yang, the artist will be in conversation with Doryun Chong, the Deputy Director and Chief Curator of M+ Hong Kong, to discuss her most recent works and ideas.
About Taipei DangdaiOfficially announced in March 2018, Taipei Dangdai is overseen by Magnus Renfrew, the Founding Director of ART HK – Hong Kong International Art Fair (2007-2012) and Art Basel Hong Kong (2012-2014), and will be presented by UBS, the Swiss financial services company and Global Lead Partner of Art Basel. To be held annually, Taipei Dangdai promises to be a world-class art event that will provide visitors the opportunity to engage in the dynamic cultural environment found not only in Taiwan but also across Asia. The fair's first edition features a lineup of 90 galleries from Taipei and surrounding Asian countries, in addition to Europe and North America.
Venue
Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center
Hall 1 (4th Floor) No. 1, Jingmao 2nd Road
Nangang District, Taipei City
VIP Preview (invitation only)
17 January [Thu] 2pm – 5pm
Vernissage (by invitation or advance ticket)
17 January [Thu] 5pm – 9pm
2019 Public Opening Hours
18 January [Fri] 12pm – 8pm
19 January [Sat] 12pm – 7pm
20 January [Sun] 12pm – 5pm
Kukje Gallery represents these artists: